Multipicture is a basic function of a video conference service and refers to that a participant can watch, in a video conference, video pictures of multiple participants on a terminal. As shown in FIG. 1, terminals A, B, C, and D are in a same video conference, and the terminal D may watch, on its own side, a scenario of multiple video pictures including videos sent by the terminals A, B, and C.
The multipicture has multiple layout forms, but generally includes a relatively large subpicture (such as, a subpicture 1 in FIG. 1) and multiple relatively small subpictures (such as, subpictures 2 and 3 in FIG. 1).
A video source (that is, a terminal whose video is displayed on a subpicture, in a video conferencing apparatus) corresponding to each subpicture may be set. As shown in FIG. 1, video sources corresponding to subpictures 1, 2, and 3 in multipicture on the terminal D are the terminals A, B, and C respectively. In a conference, the terminal D may modify a video source of a subpicture.
A current video conferencing apparatus includes a conference application server (“AS”) and a multipoint control unit (“MCU”). In a video conferencing apparatus in which multipicture are synthesized by an MCU, as shown in FIG. 2, the MCU synthesizes, under control of a conference AS, multiple video streams according to a multipicture form set by a terminal and then sends a synthesized video stream to the terminal. The terminal receives only one synthesized video stream, and therefore, the terminal cannot perceive information of the multipicture (such as, the number of subpictures, and an arrangement position and a relative size of each subpicture).
When a terminal modifies a video source corresponding to each subpicture, the terminal can modify/set the video source corresponding to the subpicture only by using a conference management interface provided by the video conferencing apparatus. For example, the terminal D accesses a conference management platform of the video conferencing apparatus by using a web browser, and enters a login account/password or a conference identity (Identity, ID for short)/conference password. After authentication is successful, the terminal D is connected to the conference management platform, and further opens a multipicture control interface to view current multipicture. In this case, on the multipicture control interface, the terminal D may select a subpicture 1 and set the terminal B as a video source; select a subpicture 2 and set the terminal A as a video source; and submit the operations, so that the video conferencing apparatus executes an operation request. An MCU of the video conferencing apparatus synthesizes multipicture according to a specified multipicture form and sends a synthesized picture to the terminal D, so that the terminal D displays modified multipicture.
The foregoing manner of modifying video sources of multipicture requires a complex operation and has poor usability.